10 years ago, Poker in Asia was a virtually unknown commodity and you couldn’t pick out a poker player from a crowd. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t play the game, or at the very least, doesn’t know how it works.

While it was popular across America — specifically in California — and some parts of Europe, poker remained in the dark among Asian countries. For a long time, land-based companies have expressed interest in pursuing the Asian market but have been largely unsuccessful in part because most of these countries – with the exception of Macau – banned any form of gambling. As a result, poker remained a Western game, completely detached from the East.

10 years later and it’s a different story altogether.

It’s no secret that poker’s popularity experienced an unprecedented surge with the introduction of online poker. Not only that but broadcasts of the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour introduced the game to millions of casual viewers.

But most importantly, poker’s introduction to Asia happened because the countries slowly began to open its collective arms to land-based and on-line gambling.

The allure of Asia as a poker crazy region comes as no surprise considering almost half of the world’s population can be found there. China and India alone comprise almost 2.5 billion people when combined and that’s not even counting Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines — densely populated countries in their own right. With all these people starting to get familiarized with the game and the attraction that comes with it, it was only a matter of time before poker games and poker tournaments exploded in the region.

And now, to say that Texas Hold ‘Em, unquestionably the most popular type of poker, is being played everywhere is a vast understatement. Poker rooms are sprouting like full-blown seeds all over Asia. Macau, a baccarat-dominated country, is slowly beginning to experience the thrill that is poker. In recent years, it has hosted numerous poker tournaments including the Asian Poker Tour Macau 2008. Incidentally, the APT now has its very own poker room at the Galaxy StarWorld Hotel and Casino.

Even in the Philippines, poker is growing faster than you can say, “All-In!” The country has hosted its fair share of tournaments not the least of which is the Asian Poker Tour. As a matter of fact, the success of last year’s APT tournament – which drew well over 316 poker players from all over the world – has resulted in the APT holding another tournament to kick off its 2009 season. The Asian Poker Tour Philippines 2009 will be held from January 27 to February 1, 2009 at the Dusit Thani Manila Hotel and it is widely expected that some of the best poker players from around the world will participate in the event.

Asian poker players have also become instrumental in the propagation of poker in Asia. Some of the best poker players in the world, including Johnny Chan, Men “The Master” Nguyen, JC Tran, Nam Le, Steve Sung, Quinn Do, David Rheem and Kwang Soo Lee all trace their roots in Asia and their impact in the world poker scene hasn’t gone unnoticed.

With the meteoric rise of poker in Asia, it only seems inevitable that more and more of the future top players of poker will come from the region. It’s a testament to a game that only ten years ago was not even an afterthought. From the darkness of obscurity, poker has risen to become one of the most popular games in Asia.

With the way things are going, it’s a safe bet that poker is far from reaching its peak popularity and that’s good news, not only for Asia, but for the entire world.

By: Rosette Siriban

Before, poker was simply viewed as a gambling activity where players put on their money to bet for more. It was usually conducted in indoor table poker games. At the rise of technology, however, poker games has also risen its popularity, not because more people have become desperate to gamble, but because of its accessibility. The accessibility factor provided interests to a lot of individuals. The biggest technology that provided access to people is the Internet. With the Internet, online poker has provided interests to viewers and has become a popular online game. In fact, it became a spectator sport. Subsequently, there has been a tournament for poker. Viewers can now look into the actual poker tournament and feel the thrills and excitement right from their homes.

Poker tournament was already held among poker players. The popular tournaments for poker are the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour. These poker tournaments have captured wide audiences. Audiences can watch the action of the tournament through the online poker or through the satellite TV featuring the poker tournament. Poker enthusiasts who are aspiring to join the tournament sometimes join the online poker for hopes to win and get the reward of joining the poker tournament.

One site that can assist poker players to go around different sites for poker tournament is Earn Poker Bonus. The site deals with different online poker sites and provides information to interested poker players. The information may involve poker bonus and promotional offers of poker sites, poker tournaments and shows, and other relevant information that are beneficial and necessary both for experienced poker players and beginners.

There are poker players who play for the tournament seat while others play for hopes of winning. While not all poker enthusiasts have the guts, interest or capability of going into poker tournaments, they can start off with playing online poker that are easy to win. In other words, they can, for the meantime, play online poker to smaller websites where they get higher chances to win by playing with weaker players. In this way, they can get the rewards from their bets and be familiar with tactics and strategies that make the individual win for more until one becomes capable of winning for the poker tournament seat.

Aside from starting out small, poker players can get access to online poker sites that hold poker tournaments. By observing through the tournament, players can get hints and strategy on how to make the best win.

All these information can be provided by Earn Poker Bonus. Earn Poker Bonus has a list of poker sites that are provides easy to win. The list has a rating or reviews from which the enthusiast can evaluate which among the site to start off. In the same way, enthusiasts can also look for sites that involved poker tournaments and be entertained and learn as well. In both cases, the player can indeed benefit from the services of Earn Poker Bonus.

By: Vikram Kumar

Online poker is defined as the type of the poker game played in the internet by either one person or a number of participants. The ease of accessibility is what has made on-line poker very popular because of its appealing nature that has seen many people turn to it as a major form of entertainment. It is estimated that in 2003 alone almost USD$ 35 million was collected in monthly revenue from on-line poker alone.

The game of poker has been going for many years, but the history of online poker – along with most other online games – is relatively short. Yet despite the relatively short length of the history of the game, it is an extremely rapid developing part of the entire online gambling industry which is not showing any signs of slowing down. While it is very popular in America, Europe is fast catching up too.

The history of online poker begins with the history of poker in general. The game of poker has been around for thousands of years with origins all over the world, from China to France to Persia and Spain. However, it wasn’t until 1834 that the game of Poker with the name of “Poker” was officially recorded. Jonathan H. Green wrote about “the cheating game” which was played on Mississippi riverboats. This game was played with only twenty cards, but evolved into modern day poker.

Online poker only dates back 9 years, to 1998 which was when the first games came on line. But the real milestone for the history of poker was 2002. A year later when the World Poker Tour was launched on America’s travel channel in March, poker really hit off. This was also true for when the World Series of Poker (WSOP) had its largest turn out over.

These events and others certainly contributed to the developing growth of the history of poker as more and more individuals found out about how fun the game was to play on line, and indeed, how lucrative it could be, especially when playing online poker tournaments. 2004 and 2005 saw a huge influx of additional online poker rooms and sites, many of which appealed to the masses, even the non-poker playing ones who started to show an interest in this new and exciting online game.

Poker is a game that is coordinated by gambling laws and regulations and is mainly played in casinos and card rooms. However, it has recently become available for play in online poker rooms. The introduction of poker to the Online has increased the popularity of the game a huge amount, but it didn’t start out so simply.

The history of online poker began in 1998, when the first online poker room was opened. Planetpoker.com was the first website in the history of online poker and as the first it had many obstacles to overcome. One of the main problems was trust-after all they had to build peoples’ trust in order to get them to play with real money on their site. They also had to work out software that would be user friendly and realistic. However, once they worked out these problems it was a smooth ride.

Probably one of the reasons the history of online poker developed so well was because of how enthusiastic poker professionals have been since the game’s inception on line. Such big names as Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Andy Bloch, and Erick Lindgren are included in this list.

The history is now definitely well on the map, especially financially as the industry in America has reached over $2 billion. There are so many poker rooms today on line that pretty much at any time, 24/7, one is able to find a poker game of their choice. Whether you love 3 card poker, video poker, Texas Hold’em Poker, 7 card stud poker, 5 card draw poker, Omaha Hi-Lo poker, to name but a few, on line players will probably be able to find a game to satisfy and appeal.

Many online poker sites offer now offer numerous features that attract and appeal to new players. This new features are what are making raves in the world series of poker because the world of poker has now wakened to the realization that even on-line poker participants can also have a shot at the big game.

One similar feature offered by the online poker sites is the tournament referred to as “satellite”. This feature allows participants to gain actual access to real live poker tournaments. In a similar tournament Chris Moneymaker emerged the victor and was able to participate in the World Series of Poker in 2003. his victory shocked the whole world.

Recent figures have in fact projected that the revenue generated by on-line poker could reach as high as US$ 100 million target in 2005, and that online participants are estimated to reach 100,000 people.

By: Abhishek Agarwal